Rating: 
Summary: Different but good
Review: I avoided reading this book for a long time because it was not a legal thriller and from the description it seemed boring. I was wrong. It is well written and as others have said the characters are wonderful. It can drag but always picks up. The only real complaint is that the ending is not one. It could have been the end of a chapter. As someone else said, we needed a resolution unless Grisham is going to produce a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: ATYPICAL GRISHAM
Review: July 8,2002 Although this book,THE PAINTED HOUSE, is not a typical John Grisham legal thriller, I could not put it down. It grips you from the beginning and keeps you in suspense throughout. I have read most of Grisham's books and after reading the dust jacket almost did not purchase this one, but I am glad I did.
Set in rural Arkansas during a time when sharecroppers were predominant, the story unfolds through the eyes of the youngest member of the Chandler family. The Chandler's eighty acre farm of low-lying, flood prone land,like many others during the same time becomes more in debt as time passes. this story gives great insight to a time that most us do not, or possibly know, about when life was much harder and the days seemed longer. Young Luke tells of the long, hard days of working with strangers, that he and his father pick up from the mountains, and imigrant workers. The story tells of the hardships that they all face and of the diversity of the people who live and work in the small town. As the Chasndler's home is being painted one board at a time, the reader is wondering who is doing the painting and why.
I would recommend this book, even though it is not typical Grisham style, it is still a very good book that readers will appreciate. This book will keep you guessing until the end and leave you with a smile.
Rating: 
Summary: A GREAT Change From Grisham's Usual Writing!
Review: I loved this book a lot,and the further I read the better and better it became. The plot of a poor family working hard in the fields day in and day out made a very interesting saga, along with all of the other happenings and events of a familie's survival skills from day to day. Grisham did a wonderful job of his scenery, which I was able to picture very well as I read the story, along with the characterization. The end wasn't really an end, though, and this story I feel, definitely needs a sequel as there are many unfinished events. How does the Chandler family fare in their new area when they move? Do they return back home later? What continues to happen with Luke? How about the mom's new baby she's expecting? There needs to be a sequel!
Rating:
Summary: A Welcome Change of Pace from Grisham's Legal Thrillers
Review: The book starts slowly-I almost cast the book aside-- but once the story reaches liftoff, it's a pretty good read, and once it reaches cruising altitude, you can't wait to find out what happens next. It takes a while before it gets to cruising altitude. The novel is half Southern Gothic, half Normal Rockwell painting. The story is told to us by seven year old Luke Chandler. He lives with his parents and grandparents in a farmhouse in Black Oak, Arkansas, in 1952. A nineteen-year-old uncle, Ricky, would be living in the house, but he is off fighting in the Korean War. The Chandlers are cotton farmers. Modern America has not yet reached the homes of the farmers of Black Oak. They have no television or TV; they have an outhouse. The highlight of Luke's week is on the weekends when the whole family drives into town in the family truck. Luke gets to drink a Coke, see a movie, and get some free candy from a friendly shopkeeper. The social order of the county is landlords and big merchants first, then farmers who own their own land, then sharecroppers, then the hill people, and then the Mexicans. The Chandlers are smack in the middle. They've managed to buy their house and the land it sits on, but the surrounding cotton fields are still leased. The Chandlers are Baptists, and they are the epitome of the American protestant work ethic. Although the Chandlers can afford to paint the outside of their house, they are too frugal to do so.
Although not about race, the book seems loosely modeled after, To Kill A Mocking Bird. Instead of Scout, the story is told by seven year old Luke Chandler. Instead of the ignorant and hate-filled Ewell family, we have the violent Ciscos. Instead of the principled Atticus Finch, we have the unflinching character of both Luke's father and grandfather. There are no blacks around; instead, we have the Mexican migrant workers at the bottom of society. There's also a sprinkling of Huckleberry Finn. Both books show us the world as seen by young boys at liberty and having adventures. The story begins in the fall, at cotton-picking time. To help bring in the harvest, the Chandlers have contracted with a group of Mexican migrant laborers and the Spruill family who have traveled from the Ozark mountains looking for work. Grisham gets several threads of conflict going to maintain the readers interest. The root of all the conflict is the Spruill's oldest son, Hank, a Herculean, rage-filled psychopath. Ultimately, he meets his match in one of the Mexican laborers--a lean, mean man named Cowboy. It would seem that growing up on the farm has taught Luke responsibility and a number of moral lessons at a very early age. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch regularly tells both of his children to not judge others until you have been in their shoes. He also stresses that the powerful should never harm the weak. In A Painted House, Luke learns similar lessons not by lecture but by seeing behavior modeled by his parent's and experiencing and observing things himself. In Huckleberry Finn, this type of moral reasoning occurs with Huckleberry, as a dialogue of peers, with the escaped slave Jim, while they are rowing a boat on the Mississippi River. By default, Luke adapted the attitude of looking down on sharecroppers, including the Latchers (even though his mother and grandmother don't). He is slowly forced to change his attitude after he finds out his brother is the father of the Latcher's teenage daughter. Many changes like this occur to Luke in the course of the story. The nearest neighbors to the Chandlers are a white sharecropper family, the Latchers. I find the situation interesting. Although they were dirt poor and were looked down upon, the Latchers still held fast to their dignity and old-fashioned values. They did not like to accept charity and felt the utmost shame when their unmarried teenage daughter became pregnant. Yet, they seem as though they could have improved their condition if they wanted to. Luke and all of the adult men are St. Louis Cardinal and Stan Musial fans. Having experienced the ups and downs of cotton farming for generations, the Chandler men to be able to connect very strongly with the ups and downs of the St. Louis Cardinals. This years cotton harvest looks like it is going to be a good one. The Cardinals are three games back from leading the league, with three weeks to go in the season. It is the five-year-old, handicapped Trot Spruill who, with the aid of his teenage sister, takes on the task of painting the Chandler house without their permission. Trot, through his innocence, tends to infuse goodness and defuse certain situations. He is the polar opposite of his monstrously violent and psychopathic grown-up brother. If you do read the book, take note of how the modern world of electricity, TV, telephones, mechanized farm equipment, motor vehicles, Coca-Cola, movies, etc. insidiously punctures and ultimately destroys this idyllic family farm life. They've become more and more dependent on the technological inventions of the outer, industrial world, but they end up being no longer able to compete in the larger economy created by it. The whole world around them is slowly changing and the Chandlers know it. Luke's mother is only more acutely aware of it than the others. If a family like Luke's couldn't make it, then who could? The book is no literary masterpiece, but it is a good read. It's good to see a book like this hit the best seller list rather than the usual legal thriller, serial murderer, or vampire book.
Rating: 
Summary: Unexpected
Review: This was a hard book to rate for me. John Grisham is an excellent writer as this book once again proves. Unfortunately, it's not my type. I'll no longer be able to just pick up every JG book & be sure I'll enjoy it. I started this book knowing it was a new venture for JG but still expecting the suspense and fast pace of his previous works. Needless to say, I was a little shocked at what I found. Yes, he did a wonderful job of describing life in that time & place, but it was extremely slow to me. It's not the type of book I look for & enjoy at all. I kept waiting for the story line to pick up & it never did. I will have to say I was disappointed. I can certainly understand a lot of the 5 stars this book received, because if this is the type of story a person enjoys well they couldn't have found much better. Unfortunately, it's not my type & not at all what I expected. I'll no longer be able to just pick up every JG book & expect to enjoy it; I'll have to check it out first.
Rating: 
Summary: Even the best authors have duds.
Review: As a novelist, it is almost comforting to find that one of the best living novelists can write a boring book. A Painted House is set in Arkansas in the 50s in a cotton growing area that seems much more like Mississippi. It is told, improbably, from a very adult viewpoint by a 7 year old boy. The first quarter of the book is virtually devoid of action or events. Finally, the narator watches a village tough get beaten to death. We wait forever to find out if anything will come of this. Eventually, things happen, but not before you're tempted to put the book down forever. With any other author, I would never have made it beyond the first 50 pages, during which NOTHING happened. John Grisham's journey into the "atmospheric" novel would better have been unventured. For a far better read, and in fact some of the best novels of the last 100 years, read (in order of my biased preference): A Time to Kill, Pelican Brief, and The Firm. For that matter, pick up any other Grisham novel, and you will be entertained. Just skip A Painted House.
Rating:
Summary: A different direction - and disappointing
Review: Having read most of John Grisham's other novels, I was looking forward to another one with action, legal maneuvering, sudden changes ... and here I found none. The story is a slice of life for a youngster growing up in Arkansas in the early 50's and his introduction to the real world of adult problems and issues. Luke Chandler is an insightful 7 year old (although a bit precocious from my observations of someone that age!) who stumbles into several indelicate situations including murder, birthing, floods and tornadoes. Grisham introduces a whole raft of characters which surround the Chandler family (SPruill's the Hill people; migrant mexican workers; various town folk) and begins to build complex relationships amongst them ... but I was disappointed that the resolution of these relationships were never clearly delineated. Tally (a Spruill whom Luke adored) runs off with Cowboy, a Mexican farmhand, without any further explanation of what happened to them. In addition, Ricky, Luke's uncle - cum - older brother, figures heavily in the thoughts of Luke, but there is never any real conclusion about his status in Korea. And the ending is certainly anticlimactic and leaves the reader wondering about whether there will be continuation novel: The Painted House - up North? Next - 2 murders are committed and witnessed by Luke - but neither of them is ever adequately resolved. And what's with the title - some time is spent on getting their dilapidated house painted (started by an invalid farm worker and completed by Luke and his stumbling into the Clemens' inspired fence-whitewashing trick) but the real symbolism of this image is never really exploited. All in all, a slow, meandering novel with flashes of more substance ... a nover to be read at a leisure pace and little chance of missing anything truly important because things are not resolved in the end anyway.
Rating:
Summary: This is a great book
Review: I am sixteen years old and this book was on my summer reading list and this is the first summer reading book I have ever read. I started reading it and got hooked this is a great book even for someone who is young like me. Read through the first couple of chapters. Do not judge the book by its first chapter because the first chapter is sorda boring, but after that it is really really good!!!
Rating:
Summary: A Very Realistic Account
Review: My parents grew up in this area of Arkansas at this period as sharecroppers. The book brings the time alive for me. I also bought this book for my mother who was overwhelmed at how realistic to her experiences it was.
Rating:
Summary: A Departure for Grisham
Review: A PAINTED HOUSE is a significant departure from the stories that John Grisham usually turns out, yet this book does not fail to disappoint. Myself, I found it more satisfying that some of his others, such as THE FIRM and THE PELICAN BRIEF. I thought that the story was well-written, but the writing felt a little awkward at first. I felt that the plot was also well-planned, if a little slow. The shining element of this story, however, was the characterisation of the Chandler family, especially young Luke himself. The Chandler family are all so excellently characterised, they seem real, and through Luke's eyes we are able to see the underlying tensions as well as the loyalty and blood ties that bind them together. With the exception of Tally, I really felt that the Spruill family could have been more thoroughly characterised, however, and I think that the characters and stories of Trot and Hank could have been more deeply explored and exploited. The theme of the journey from innocence to experience almost always strikes a chord, and in this instance shares several similarities with Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, though A PAINTED HOUSE inevitably suffers from the comparison as it lacks the emotional drive that sustains Harper Lee's novel.
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